In 1695 the pair went down together to their native country.  The Parliament of that country was then about to meet under the presidency of Tweeddale, an old acquaintance and country neighbour of Fletcher.  On Tweeddale the first attack was made.  He was a shrewd, cautious, old politician.  Yet it should seem that he was not able to hold out against the skill and energy of the assailants.  Perhaps, however, he was not altogether a dupe.  The public mind was at that moment violently agitated.  Men of all parties were clamouring for an inquiry into the slaughter of Glencoe.  There was reason to fear that the session which was about to commence would be stormy.  In such circumstances the Lord High Commissioner might think that it would be prudent to appease the anger of the Estates by offering an almost irresistible bait to their cupidity.  If such was the policy of Tweeddale, it was, for the moment, eminently successful.  The Parliament, which met burning with indignation, was soothed into good humour.  The blood of the murdered Macdonalds continued to cry for vengeance in vain.  The schemes of Paterson, brought forward under the patronage of the ministers of the Crown, were sanctioned by the unanimous voice of the Legislature.

The great projector was the idol of the whole nation.  Men spoke to him with more profound respect than to the Lord High Commissioner.  His antechamber was crowded with solicitors desirous to catch some drops of that golden shower of which he was supposed to be the dispenser.  To be seen walking with him in the High Street, to be honoured by him with a private interview of a quarter of an hour, were enviable distinctions.  He, after the fashion of all the false prophets who have deluded themselves and others, drew new faith in his own lie from the credulity of his disciples.  His countenance, his voice, his gestures, indicated boundless self-importance.  When he appeared in public he looked,—­such is the language of one who probably had often seen him,—­like Atlas conscious that a world was on his shoulders.  But the airs which he gave himself only heightened the respect and admiration which he inspired.  His demeanour was regarded as a model.  Scotch men who wished to be thought wise looked as like Paterson as they could.

His plan, though as yet disclosed to the public only by glimpses, was applauded by all classes, factions and sects, lords, merchants, advocates, divines, Whigs and Jacobites, Cameronians and Episcopalians.  In truth, of all the ten thousand bubbles of which history has preserved the memory, none was ever more skilfully puffed into existence; none ever soared higher, or glittered more brilliantly; and none ever burst with a more lamentable explosion.  There was, however, a certain mixture of truth in the magnificent day dream which produced such fatal effects.